As it turns out, Cafe Lomi is a small roastery and workshop, not a public cafe. Despite appearing busy when we knocked on the door, Aleaume Paturle of Lomi was kind enough to invite Claire and me in.

In our quest for coffee we had interrupted a little barista jam between Thomas Lehoux, training for the French barista championship, and David Flynn, formerly of Murky Coffee in Washington D.C. We had a nice chat and learned about their Frog Fights barista meet-ups, which appear to be growing more and more popular – especially after being featured in the NYT several days after we’d talked to them.

That kind of energy brewing under the surface of the French coffee scene is a good thing. As Oliver Strand at the New York Times has written, the coffee in Paris is generally quite bad. If you look at the reader comments on his articles, you’ll see a lot of silly nationalistic (and misplaced anti-nationalistic) umbrage. But the fact remains, the overall standard for coffee is quite low in Paris. This is because many of the basic tenets of quality coffee practice are not observed. Sure, the same could be said of most major cities in the US, but over the past decade you’ve seen an ever expanding number of cafes and roasteries that are pursuing a higher level of craft and generally raising the bar across the industry.

Cafe Lomi has a pleasant storefront that is completely anonymous when they're closed (I know because I tried finding it three or four times haha).

While high end (or aspiring) cafes and roasteries are popping up all over the place in the US and abroad, if you’re looking for a good coffee in Paris you’re basically limited to La Cafeotheque. Unfortunately when I tried to visit they were closed, but by all accounts they have been the standard bearer for the Parisian specialty coffee scene – sourcing and roasting quality single origin coffee and attempting to maintain some level of consistency and quality in staff training. (Map)

Oliver Strand also suggests visiting David at Le Bal, and I’ll second that recommendation.

So, I look forward to visiting Paris again some time. Hopefully we’ll see Frog Fights and other barista gigs pushing the level of knowledge and quality upwards! With such a rich gastronomic tradition, France is long overdue for a coffee revolution.

A few more random touristy photos from Paris :)

Inside the Pompidou, which was excellent! Their de Stilj exhibit was one of the most comprehensive I've ever seen. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Pompidou Center has great views of the city.

Acide Macaron - owned by Jonathon Blot, trained by Alain Ducasse. I'm not a macaron connoisseur, but these made me a believer.

Christmas day organ recital at Notre Dame Cathedral

It’s surprising how few fine dining establishments bother to compliment their meticulously prepared food with quality coffee. A while ago I found out that LAMILL has a roastery in Korea that supplies coffee to a few restaurants and hotels, including the Hyatt, so I was looking forward to trying it out at some point.

For Valentines day we tried the Sunday brunch buffet at the Park Hyatt hotel’s Cornerstone restaurant after reading a few good reviews online. The food was great overall, especially the main courses (I thought the lamb was pretty amazing), though their tasting dishes inspired by Korean cuisine were not as interesting or refined as those at W Hotel’s ‘Kitchen’ restaurant.

I asked for a coffee and out came a ~6 oz. Americano with light crema on the surface. It tasted pretty good once it cooled a bit, with decent body and a nice semi-sweet, roasty flavor showing through the water. Nice!

Before we left I asked for an espresso to finish off the meal, hoping for something decent but expecting the usual (worst). Surprisingly, they pull a decent shot that shows a lot of the characteristic caramel and dark chocolate of LAMILL’s espresso blend.

After that we went up to the 24th floor lounge, creatively named ‘The Lounge,’ to do a little reading (yeah, we’re nerds). The experience here wasn’t as pleasant. They advertise LAMILL coffee on their menu and charge an astronomical 12,000KRW (~$12) for any espresso based drinks. Total waste of money; and on top of that it was undrinkably bitter and over extracted. And wifi costs $12 an hour too. The atmosphere is alright but nothing to excuse that kind of price gouging and mediocrity. If you do visit, avoid coffee. Get a smoothie or something.

Park Hyatt is located right outside exit 1 at Samsung (COEX) station.

We’re back in Korea, but not before sitting through a mind numbing twelve hour delay at Beijing International, a blizzard that caused 298 cancellations right after we finally took off.

Arriving at 5am local time, after a sleepless 12 hour flight that departed at 1am Los Angeles time, I was in dire need of caffeine. I went to the first cafe I saw at the airport, which, advertising “beer, coffee, pasta,” was quite the multitasker; but like all the food I had there, it sucked.

The barista, who had been passed out on the back counter, woke up and knocked half the things off the counter onto the floor, and then proceeded to fill the entire doser with ground coffee, ensuring stale coffee for everyone after me.

The restaurants in the airport are even worse, at least at 5am. And there are no convenience stores to find snacks. When our flight was delayed, Air China gave us free lunches that consisted of processed bread, which tasted more like sweetened cotton balls, and processed spam-like meats stuffed with pieces of corn. Yum. Thanks China.

So, consider yourself warned: bring your own food to Beijing international, or you might starve if your flight is delayed.

More pictures here on Flickr, plus LA posts coming up soon.

-Aaron